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The Sea Between Image and Imagination-The In- Vestigation of the Underwater World from the Re- Naissance to the Age of Enlightenment

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The Sea Between Image and Imagination-The In- Vestigation of the Underwater World from the Re- Naissance to the Age of Enlightenment The Sea Between Image and Imagination-the In- vestigation of the Underwater World from the Re- naissance to the Age of Enlightenment A. Ceregato Institute of Marine Sciences, CNR, Bologna, Italy [email protected] Abstract The roots of modern Marine sciences as commonly meant stemmed from the work of Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (Bologna, 1658 - 1730), an eclectic military archi- tect who produced the first “scientific” descriptions of the seabed and its inhabitants. Coeval of the natural philosopher Vallisneri and introduced by Newton to the Royal Society of London, Marsili represents an ideal link between the observation of Na- ture according to the method developed in the sixteenth century by his co-citizen Ulisse Aldrovandi and the modern oceanographic disciplines. Curiously but perhaps not accidentally, the Institute of Marine Geology of CNR, now incorporated into the ISMAR, was founded by Raimondo Selli in Bologna, Marsili’s birthplace and Selli himself named after his ancient precursor one of the most impressive submarine vol- canoes of the Mediterranean. 1 Introduction Tracio [1] written during his earlier career, and the programmatic Histoire Physique The modern approach to the history of sci- de la Mer [2] published in the Nether- ence (and to history in general) tends to lands just five years before Marsili’s death, investigate rather the context than finding at the end of a life entirely spent on the the “first”, the “precursor” or the “father” field, through all over the Mediterranean of a discipline or of a theory. Nonetheless, from the Bosporus to Gibraltar. The first individual people undoubtedly boosted the work cited above contains analytical re- evolution of science, or they made a dis- sults of the investigations on some physi- covery before anybody else, with very di- cal features of the sea performed by Mar- verse outcomes according to many vari- sili during his first diplomatic mission from ables. Venice to the Ottoman Empire and his re- It is commonly accepted that the devel- turn trip to Venice, that can be considered opment of the marine sciences (the term as one of the first oceanographic surveys. “oceanography” appeared much later, af- The Histoire Physique represents somehow ter the 1872-1876 Challenger expeditions), the completion of this research, presenting took place after the work of Luigi Fer- new data on the seawater currents, temper- dinando Marsili (1658-1730) (Figure1), ature and salinity, but also descriptions of in particular from two of his published the seabottom and of the marine organisms works, Osservazioni intorno al Bosforo [3,4,5]. Oceanography Figure 1: Portrait of Luigi Ferdinando Marsili. (Courtesy of G.B Vai. University of Bologna) As a matter of fact, the most original ele- tiaries like the De arte venandi cum avibus ment of the approach of Luigi Ferdinando by Emperor Frederick II [6], the role of Marsili to investigation and to the dissemi- images was primarily ornamental or sym- nation of his observations is due to the ap- bolic, and their accuracy was poor or even plication of the scientific method codified fantastic. Until the Renaissance, most of some decades earlier by Galilei, Descartes the written knowledge about nature con- and Bacon, but also to the wide use of the sisted of a transmittance from generation to image as a scientific tool, introduced by generation of a mix of Latin texts, transla- Ulisse Aldrovandi (Figure2) in Marsili’s tions from Arabic authors and Arabic ver- hometown Bologna, about a century be- sions of Greek literature. These hand- fore. written books were enriched by comments (the “glossae”) and sometimes by drawings only occasionally taken from a real model 2 Imagine versus imagina- even in the case of depicted herbals or med- tion ical treatises; more commonly, texts and images were simply copied from volume The combined use of image and text as a to volume. This way of transmission of tool for describing the natural objects (man knowledge favoured the creation of stereo- included) is well known from the antiq- typical, simplified images, whose signifi- uity to medieval treatises, but except of cance carried rather symbolic significances some medical herbals and of particular bes- than real features of the natural objects. 1278 Marine research at CNR Figure 2: Portrait of Ulisse Aldrovandi (copy from the original by Pelagio Pelagi, early 1800) Courtesy of G.B. Vai. (Photo Mattei-Zannoni, BUB, ASUB) Starting from the XV century, the strong Theory of Earth based on the Neo-Platonist interaction between art and science and a relationship between Man’s Microcosm renewed attention to the physical reality led and Nature’s Macrocosm, demonstrated to an increased accuracy of the images. that fossils are the remains of ancient or- The new fame of the Naturalis Historia of ganisms that the Deluge could not carry to Pliny and novelties imported from the voy- the highest mountains [7]. ages of exploration explosively expanded At the end of the XV century, Leonardo the list of terrestrial and marine organisms, in Italy and Albrecht Durer¨ (1471-1528) in forcing the natural philosophers to review Germany, started two different approaches the old classifications and try to build a new to the figurative description of natural ob- inventory of the world. jects: while Leonardo, drawing natural ob- The introduction of printing and of more jects and anatomic studies, always tended accurate and analytical illustrations, fed an to represent the dynamism, the continuous irreversible process of liberation from the transformation of the objects and the rela- old scholasticism, based on a dogmatic in- tionship between the subject and its con- terpretation of Aristotle (filtered from me- text in order to stress their evocative power, dieval tradition) which conditioned most of on the other hand Durer¨ isolated the objects the knowledge on nature. to concentrate the analysis on the physical Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), in search nature of the objects themselves; the best of proving a geocentric, ”protoscientific” techniques to achieve the finest detail were 1279 Oceanography Figure 3: Section of the Earth surface with the hypothetical profile of the seabed. A. Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus (III Ed. 1678), Cap. XV, p. 97. G.B. Vai (2004) Ed., Critical reprint by A. Forni Editore. (A. Ceregato, personal archive and photo) the drawing by ink pen, the engraving and sively as possible the diversity of natural a mix of tempera and watercolors [8]. objects, animals, plants and minerals and The new generation of natural philoso- to compose a natural history rich in im- phers will choose the model proposed by ages as much accurate as possible. For Durer¨ and his pupils as the best for their this purpose Aldrovandi created an artis- descriptions. The Swiss Conrad Gess- tic laboratory within his home museum and ner (or Gesner;1516-1565) will attempt invited some of the best illustrators and for first to build an updated inventory of engravers of his time to take their draw- the Three Kingdoms of Nature: Animalia, ings directly from his specimens; he also Plantae and Mineralia. The technique of acquired and exchanged watercolours and engraving on wood and later on copper engraved images from his correspondents sheets developed by Durer¨ was immedi- and collectors as the Archidukes of Tus- ately adopted for printing the new trea- cany and the Duke of Mantua. He per- tises [9]. The Counter-Reformation lim- sonally maintained for years some artists, ited the freedom of Italian natural philoso- and looked at Durer’s¨ legacy when he de- phers (Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno cided to print his books, so he hired Cor- were only the most famous victims), who nelius Schwindt and Christopher Lederlein were denied to venture interpretations dan- (Cristoforo Coriolano) who produced more gerously dissonant with the Scriptures, but than 3000 woodcuts at the end of 1598 (i.e. did not prevent to investigate the “order” [10]; see also [11] for a complete reference of Nature: Ulisse Aldrovandi (Bologna, review). 1522-1605) set up the first natural history A part of four volumes (Ornithologiae. I, museum at home, a microcosm of Na- II, III and De Animalibus Insectis) pub- ture tended to show as more comprehen- lished from 1599 to 1603, the remaining 1280 Marine research at CNR Figure 4: Map of the surface oceanic currents after Athanasius Kircher. Kircher did not perform any direct measurement, differently from what Marsili did some decades later, but it is one earliest attempt of representing the sea currents. From Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus (III Ed. 1678). Crit. Ed. by G.B. Vai, 2004. A. Forni ed. (A. Ceregato, personal archive and photo) books of the Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Historia of the images. He also was used to list Naturalis were printed after his death, of- all the current, popular, foreign names re- ten remarkably modified by the curators ferred to each “species”, both within his and only one of the planned botanical vol- books and in his collection of more than umes was published in 1668. According 2000 colour drawings he used also for his to the common approach of that age, the lessons as the first professor of Natural His- taxonomy was adapted from those of Aris- tory at the Bologna University. totle or, as Aldrovandi tended to prefer, The XVII century is apparently charac- from Pliny. Each section included a re- terized by a paradox: on one hand, it is view of the previous knowledge about a the age of the Scientific Revolution intro- group of natural objects, not only “sci- duced by Galileo Galilei, Rene` Descartes entific” descriptions but also symbolic at- and Francis Bacon, of the experimental tributes and their eventual pharmaceutical methodology, of the discovery of the new use.
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